Sirrocco
Pedantic
Worldwide may be a bit much, but we can certainly do a heavy recruiting drive in every city that we have a tower in (Eh... exception for Bialya).
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Lex Sedet In Vertice: A Supervillain in the DCU CK2 quest
- Thread starter King crimson
- Start date
- Superhero
I think we need to help the people of the world. Lex corp has years of experience working with multiple countries to help house, train , and educate meta humans. It is the right thing to do to help the people of the world accept metahumans. Lex corp is willing to work with the governments of the world to help those unfortunate people who have had triggers of their metahuman gene.
Edit just in case people do not understand.we use building the Luthor schools for training metahumans as way to influence the government's of the world while we build a army of meta humans.
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Gumiho
Reach heaven through violence!
We are not a charity, and we've been hit quite hard, just like the rest of the world has by Braniac. We ahould look to our own before we look outwards.
Read my edit
Lord Ultimus
Beautiful...
- Location
- Undisclosed Warehouse
Last omake idea from me for a while: in a world where we gave Cass to Kate, Kate and Pam explain to her that they're getting married.
Sirrocco
Pedantic
Building metahuman schools worldwide is going to take an enormous number of actions. Each one is at least one diplo action to get permission and set things up and at least one stewardship/construction action to get the thing built. We don't have that kind of resources.
More fully, we are not going to be able to corner the market on metahumans. It's not happening. At best, e can be seen as a preferential employer for metahumans and others with superpowers and have the doors wide open for hiring same. That'll get us a decent number of rank-and-file metas and, if we do amazingly well, a slow trickle of potential hero units.
Well, but there is always Superman. Lex has no problem with killing Superman (and killed his own father in the past solely) for his ego.
Never mind all of the other shady things that we did (as well as many of our less than altruistic motivations for many of the good things that we've done).
No reason to fall for our own propaganda.
We can get into a philosophical discussion over the nature of evil and the like, but that's probably fundamentally a bad thing to do - ergo, we are "evil-er" than the bet family, meaning that we can be an "evil" version of the Batfamily.
Well, anti-Batfamily, if you prefer.
I still like the idea of Kate and Pamela having a big family.
Oh, and with all of the girls running around, we might as well make our own, girl-only version of the Teen Titans at this rate.
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King crimson
Confusion Will Be My Epitaph
- Location
- Los Angeles
So, update on how things are going. Take this with a grain of salt because I've been absolutely terrible about sticking to a schedule as of late but the update should be completed by tomorrow even if there is a chance that I'll split the update into two updates to get things to work/flow better. Thank you all for your patience and understanding.
What makes Lex different from say Metallo is that unlike a lot of other supervillains, Lex can make very strong arguments that he's a necessary evil, that in the moral utilitarian calculus Lex does more good than harm and thus all of the harm he does is justified since it enables him to do more good.
You as people yes. Lex Luthor not so much. Lex is someone who, if not evil himself, enables evil people and evil actions to succeed (Ra's al Ghul, Oswald Cobblepot, Count Vertigo, Dr. Moon, Queen Bee, Bane and more are all various shades of black and Lex has worked with all of them to some capacity or another. Lex has also done things like bribe public officials and finance assassination attempts which I'm pretty sure fall under some degree of evil).
What makes Lex different from say Metallo is that unlike a lot of other supervillains, Lex can make very strong arguments that he's a necessary evil, that in the moral utilitarian calculus Lex does more good than harm and thus all of the harm he does is justified since it enables him to do more good.
I mean you can arguably say the same thing about say, Brainiac. Brainiac does not delight in cruelty (except towards the House of El) and he doesn't cause harm for its own sake except towards Superman (he causes harm to acquire the most valuable information possible). I'm pretty sure that most people would consider Brainiac to be pretty evil despite fitting under this definition.
Being a philanthropist and someone who produces good in the world doesn't stop him from being a war profiteer, complicit in human experimentation (Count Vertigo's research into metahumans which Lex aided), incredibly manipulative and controlling and more many more things besides that.
This part's something that works (although I'm assuming it's a hyperbolic statement and the general intent of what you plan on doing as you move forward as opposed to a literal statement that "there's nothing Superman could do to strike at Lex Luthor"). This is a solid argument you could take I just want to point out that some of what you were saying is arguably untrue even if I think what you're saying here isn't as flawed.
I mean I'd argue differently but in some ways it might even be worse for Superman. Lex at the end of the day is to some degree or another evil and is engaged in a lot of evil and immoral things. That being said Lex has a habit of making himself a necessary evil in a lot of different ways and for an idealist that is oftentimes worse. After all I've mentioned that I think Superman represents/touches on justice the best out of the DC Trinity and Lex Luthor as a necessary evil is a massive "fuck you" to everything Superman stands for philosophically.
I mean I've mentioned it before but I have been workshopping a Young Justice omake that has Cassandra leading an all-female counterpart to the original team from that show. I don't have things completed but this is what I've got so far and the roster constantly changes and I might not even ever write it but what I've got so far is as follows.
- Cassandra-Kaldur: Both of them are the leaders of the team, skilled fighters who don't rely on power and both are adopted and embrace their adopted identity over their birth one
- Jade-Artemis: The two of them are sisters so they make the most natural counterpoints to one another
- Silver Banshee-Superboy: Powerhouses of the team with control issues and are both technically half one thing, half another thing. Plus, it felt right making the Superman villain the counterpart to Superboy
- Jinx-Kid Flash: I think it would be fun to play on the romance in the Teen Titans cartoon to make them counterparts and I think that their fights would be interesting to choreograph as well. They also are the characters in the team most prone to joking around even if it is in different ways.
- Raven-Miss Martian: Both of them have incredibly powerful abilities and are arguably the scariest members on their team and at the same time both of them are attempting to desperately hide or repress something about who they are.
A few things:
1) If Cassandra needs a code name, I suggest "Orchid" - it feels very suitable for some reason.
2) Recruiting Kaldur is probably going to be good for us down the line. Does he exist here? And if so, which version of him does? The Young Justice version is probably out of our reach, but the rebirth version...
3) Don't you have a lot of interludes and write-ups lined up already? In any case, it might be a bit early for this particular omake. I'd also suggest Rose as the Artemis Counterpart rather than Jade.
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- Location
- Singapore
We met Kaldur's Adoptive Dad and dosed him with pheramones during the Atlantis Event. He hates us.
If we do things right Kaldur may not even exist as Black Manta (Kaldur's biological dad) becomes the perfect scapegoat and Public Enemy and is hunted all the time.
King crimson
Confusion Will Be My Epitaph
- Location
- Los Angeles
1) Orchid is very similar to Orphan which is a name Cassandra has used hence why it might feel suitable for you.
2) A composite version of Kaldur but one that primarily and heavily draws on the Young Justice version.
3) I mean yes and no. I've got like 20 different things I'm brainstorming for writing at any given time (Currently ongoing writing projects on my end include an original book, the update, two Earth 17 omakes, the Last Days of Krypton, the next instalment of the Titanverse omakes, a post on political characters, a Chaon non-canon story, an original tv show outline titled "Last Man Standing", editing various pitches for movies, a post on what I do and don't like about characters, the Cassandra adopted by Diana timeline omake idea that Lord Ultimus suggested, a post comparing how Cassandra Cain and Cassandra Luthor will likely end up looking very physically different from one another, a further discussion/refinement of the New Gods, a crossover with Growing Cains, a crossover with For Love of Evil, a discussion of tropes as shorthand, a non-canon story starring Booster Gold traveling through time and accidentally changing the present, more schools of magic informational posts and more. Most of the stuff on that list will not come out this month or even potentially this year and I'm willing to bet that even more of it will simply never be written or completed).
The Young Justice omake has been being brainstormed since April of 2020 and is almost no closer to being released. I think it's fine on that front as I enjoy brainstorming this stuff and occasionally talking to people about it. I wouldn't worry about what I've got lined up in terms of what I'm actually writing as on that front I'm much more selective there and overthinking everything and having a million ideas I never do anything with has been a part of the process since the beginning.
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Lord Ultimus
Beautiful...
- Location
- Undisclosed Warehouse
Holy moley! Someone is actually writing fanfiction of my fanfiction! I've hit the big time!
King crimson
Confusion Will Be My Epitaph
- Location
- Los Angeles
Apologies I'm experiencing some delays. Thank you for your understanding.
Lord Ultimus
Beautiful...
- Location
- Undisclosed Warehouse
What would the Earth-3 version of Cassandra Luthor look like?
Torgamous
Aspiring Gynoid
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Canon Batgirl?
Lord Ultimus
Beautiful...
- Location
- Undisclosed Warehouse
No, she should still be good!Luthor's daughter.
Like assume an Earth-3 with all the characters in our Quest working for the same people and have the same coworkers.
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Torgamous
Aspiring Gynoid
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Liongirl, then.
Less flippantly: just being on Earth-3 to begin with changes a lot for Cassandra. What's David doing there? If you want to keep Cass as close to her usual self as possible, he could be the Big Daddy to Cassandra's Hit Girl, which is a whole story on its own. From there, a lot depends on in what capacity Lex is resisting the usual heroes, and if that's been detailed anywhere I missed it.
Lord Ultimus
Beautiful...
- Location
- Undisclosed Warehouse
Probably something like the company resisting against Ultraman's tyranny under wraps, in the same way we're trying to kill Superman in a way without it being connected back to us.
Robert Frost is a Weaboo (Part 1)
Omake: Robert Frost is a Weaboo (Part 1)
There was a certain appeal to experiencing different cultures.
...Or so was Mr. Frost told. He had never quite seen the appeal of such a thing.
"Culture" was fundamentally but another form of organization when it really came down to it - certain people that were predisposed to certain things, not through any inherent reasons but rather through the momentum of society itself.
As such, ultimately, there were "good" cultures and "bad" cultures. Mr. Frost did not need to experience bad cultures for the sole reason of having gained such an experience - that was obviously circular reasoning.
Strictly speaking, there were different levels to this, and many such cultures were far from being organized despite supposedly fitting into certain boxes at least to an extent.
This was not the case with the people of Japan - they all fit neatly into their boxes and made little fuss about it.
Oddly enough, such boxes were well and truly a choice. Conformity, in and of itself, held power among the Japanese to a greater extent than anything that Mr. Frost has seen before.
When he himself arrived in Japan he has been informed of certain matters of etiquette when it came to business, and that he was to master them in order to not tarnish the Lexcorp name.
Already upon his very first business meeting he partook in Meishi, an exchange of business cards with some manner of ritualistic slant to it.
The Meishi was a multi-step process and needed to be done precisely or not at all and there was a degree of impracticality to it, but it was the reality of the island nation and a piece of procedure and so he would play along.
Such matters of behavior would not end with that.
In the following weeks he would learn much more about Japan's societal make-up and culture.
As it were, anything and everything was disciplined and had an order to it - business greetings and farewells, public transport conduct, behavior when dining with co-workers and even the order in which you enter the elevator.
Everything was predesigned. Premade. Speaking of a not inconsiderable amount of history and tradition in even the most mundane things.
One example of such a thing would be in official meetings.
The place you would assume around the table would speak of your level of power.
The person sitting closest to the door had their back turned to it, thus leaving them the most exposed to an attack from an assailant or an assassin (which was far more common in the days of old), meaning that your position in relation to the door and to the others spoke of your status when compared to them.
It was curious to him that matters of power could be boiled down to sitting arrangements in such a way, with such a subtle way of saying "among us, your life means the least, and should you be assaulted you will offer us a chance to escape", but Mr. Frost was glad for it all the same as it made his job much easier.
After all, any person who entered a room would know of his superior position without him having to interact with them at all or them having to know anything about him.
Society was structured a certain way and protected its integrity through conformity. Anything that did not conform was ultimately broken and disregarded.
He would not soon forget how upon his way to work he would pass near a school on occasion and would see children in their uniforms. Not only were their clothes the exact same, but their black hair was styled the same way as well.
On occasion, he would observe a single girl with long, brown, flowing hair. One day he saw her going back from school and could tell that she was been crying, sniffling and rubbing her puffy red eyes, the very next day she already had her hair dyed black, trimmed and held in a tight ponytail.
Good.
The Japanese were people after his own heart, in the sense that they fit his perceptions of how a society should be.
Eager to please on one hand, yet following many codes of conduct that were rooted in things that were fundamentally easy to measure and observe, such as language, history, and pop culture.
To understand such things further and be able to leverage these "rules of society" to his advantage, Mr. Frost came to the conclusion that he would need to study them better.
And so, Mr. Frost began taking online courses in Japanese studies and history, as well as receiving further tutoring on how to behave from his locally recruited employees.
His grasp of history increased the effectiveness of his etiquette lessons and while he had to wear gloves when using chopsticks (they were painful to his bones when in direct contact with his exposed hands) it was ultimately well worth it if only for the impression that such an initiative left on those around him.
Learning Japanese has proven to be quite an ordeal, however.
The language was difficult and nuanced, with every word seeming so particular and deliberate, with three different writing systems and an unavoidable hierarchy of politeness (and thus, power) that was present in every interaction.
To him, that was a truly beautiful thing that he could appreciate both intellectually and practically.
In a way, the Japanese language was symbolic of the Japanese people themselves, which is why Mr. Frost was so stumped by their constant usage of American English.
Such an intelligent and beautiful language with such an absurd brand of slang - They borrowed much from English as a result of the post-WW2 influence and there was a certain extent of American idolization on one hand and yet a curious measure of Xenophobia on the other everywhere you looked.
His grasp over the Japanese language was far from perfect, or even just serviceable really, but his hours of practice have not gone to waste, and whenever he has shown his willingness to adapt to their ways they seemed to hold him at a higher regard for it.
They even stopped referring to him as "the alien", which is a measure of casual courtesy that was not given to many other foreigners.
Yes. Mr. Frost very much enjoyed the Japanese.
Social interactions were polite but always cool and distant, and there was much willingness to give people their space.
As such, aside from practiced matters of behavior and a set level of politeness that was expected, there wasn't an aspect of Japanese "sociability" that was above Mr. Frost's ability to master.
As strange as it was, this Land of The Rising Sun felt more like a home to him than the United States ever did, and there were yet many aspects of it left for him to learn and master, prime of which is the modern aspect of society, one that he could observe through certain trends and spoken Japanese but not necessarily be able to explain through historical research alone.
Still, Mr. Frost would not have it be said that he wasn't adaptable or capable of evolving.
He will master this aspect of society as he had all others and gain a thorough understanding of Japan, as could only be expected.
The only question that was left to ask is: Where should he start?
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This still requires some editing and there is a lot of "show don't tell" here that I may have glossed over but I like this omake overall.
If I ever get down to it, the next parts of this saga would include Mr. Frost building a manga collection, doing poetic analysis of Jpop and going to funky Japanese reality shows.
Well, assuming I will ever actually get down to it.
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King crimson
Confusion Will Be My Epitaph
- Location
- Los Angeles
Read it and enjoyed it. It's a fairly solid omake and I enjoyed reading it. Below will be my specific commentary but this omake is considered canon and has earned 500 exp.
This right here was a tense shift. The rest of this omake is in past tense while this here shifts to present tense unnecessarily. As such the correction to make is "Mr. Frost did not need..." and the thing is fine.
I actually adore this section right here. It's really good and it gets down to the heart of why Mr. Frost is so incredibly unpleasant and at times even cruel. I think it really highlights some of the (relative) abnormality in his thinking and it does it all without overtly stating anything about Mr. Frost. I think it's fantastic.
I mean language, history and pop culture tend to not be things that are easy to measure and observe (for example we have no clue how Martin Borrman, a high-ranking Nazi officer who carried Hitler's last will and testament, died and his body was never found. That's a very basic example of history that we will never know and thus could never measure or observe that occured in the last 100 years).
Granted this gets by on Mr. Frost straight up being wrong here in his POV but in actuality this isn't really reflective of reality. It's not really a slight on the omake just a bit of commentary on my part.
This is an interesting part of the whole omake to me. I don't believe I've ever discussed Mr. Frost's hands before and as such the bit about his bones has no grounding in canon. However, because I never have said anything that goes against it this is still considered canon. I think it's a neat little bit of worldbuilding.
I think it works well enough. It does admittedly have some moments which feel a little weaker to me but when the omake manages to really shine is when it manages to use the implicit things about Japanese culture to show something about Mr. Frosts character. The high points are there and they are good.
This omake earned 500 exp and canon status.
Lord Ultimus
Beautiful...
- Location
- Undisclosed Warehouse
What are we picturing when we picture the LexCorp kids as adults?
King crimson
Confusion Will Be My Epitaph
- Location
- Los Angeles
Joke answer: Really solid hero units, expensive suits and yet more characters for Tara Strong to voice in addition to everyone else she voices in DC (she consistently voices Raven, Harley Quinn and Batgirl and has also voiced Terra, Poison Ivy, Mercy Graves, Lois Lane, Cheshire, Huntress, a young Bruce Wayne and more)
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Gumiho
Reach heaven through violence!
For Cass, a not-so-little Lex, but with insane hand to hand skills.
Lord Ultimus
Beautiful...
- Location
- Undisclosed Warehouse
And Jinx is her uber-competent, supermagical right hand woman that's mostly professional but has some very dry wit?
Gumiho
Reach heaven through violence!
Of course.